THE "COUNCIL HALL OF ATHENS" "Sebastiano Serlio describes it in one of his books, illustrated by Professor George Hersey in "Pythagorean Palaces, where he instances what he calles the 'hypostyle'. He illustrates it with a square building of 100 columns having a tower in each corner containing a spiral stair. This, Professor Hersey reports, Serlio describes as "the original building, the Council Hall of Athens". Such statements, made, as we know, by a writer ignorant of Athenian archaeology, are not to be understood literally. We may not think that Hellenic architects were as wedded to functionalism as we are, but not even an Ancient Greek, with all of their rhetorical sophistry, could have persuaded his Council to meet in a Prytaneion so entirely stuffed with columns that there was no room for anything else." SCRIPTING SPACE: "The Empire of the Forest".